


Imperfection

by duckcrab



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:58:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckcrab/pseuds/duckcrab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: Imperfection<br/>Fandom: Inception<br/>Summary: At the airport after the job.<br/>Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur<br/>Rating: R<br/>Notes: inception_kink <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/756.html?thread=157172#t157172">prompt</a>: <em>Post-job, adrenaline-fueled sex. Could be they fuck in an airport bathroom or in the back of a cab on the way out.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperfection

Because she can hardly remember how it began, partway through she starts to believe that it is a dream.

Adrenaline still pumped through her veins from the job, and when she’d seen him come into the bathroom a few seconds behind her she felt more inclined to confide than chide.

“I shot Mal, and jumped off of a building,” she says to his reflection in the mirror.

He’s easing his way closer, has his hands in his pockets, a smile on his face.

“I was in zero gravity, and beat the shit out of some guys.”

“Awesome,” she says, turning around to close the gap between them.

It’s all teeth and tongue and urgency. Chaste has been done. It’s boring. It got them nowhere.

_They’re still looking at us._

_Look at us_ now _._

He’s rough, and so is she; laughs airily when he pushes her up against the nearest wall, nearly tears the tie from his neck, yanks on his shirt until buttons land with a ping into the sink basin.

“Arthur,” she says as they stumble into one of the stalls. He secures the door behind him.

“Yeah,” he says. Her jacket is now on the floor next to the toilet, totem in the right pocket. Her shirt is next. He’s kissing her breasts, tongue just wetting the top of the lace, making it cling.

“A—Arthur,” she says again, hand pressing hard against the back of his head. “Are you real?”

He laughs, and his breath tickles the tiny hairs on her neck. His fingertips brush her thighs as he pushes the skirt up, leaves it bunched around her waist while he brings the white lace panties down.

He kisses her again, delves deep, tongue warm and sweet, making her think of cinnamon rolls. He takes her thigh in his hand, pulls it up around his hip, and presses one finger into her.

Another.

He kisses her again, deep. Pit-of-her-stomach, tip-of-her-toes deep.

“Does this feel real?”

“Y-yes,” she answers, eyes doing a complete rotation into the back of her skull. “But so does getting shot in the leg.”

“It’s real,” he says. Of this she is doubtful.

His fingers are gone suddenly, and she whines with disappointment until she sees that he’s fumbling with his belt. He’s in too much of a hurry. Her hands are surprisingly steady, and the article drops to the floor.

Pants around his ankles, skirt around her stomach, they merge. Tongue and groove, she thinks, made to fit. He’s lifted her other leg over his hip, and she’s found a convenient handhold at the top of the stall that allows him to manipulate her hips as he rocks in and out of her.

Whatever it is that coils up tight inside her is reaching its limit, and she can almost hear the metal wires snapping, whizzing by her head. Her left leg is straight out now, foot pressed against the opposite wall, and the first time he pushes into her in this new position she cries out. He holds her in his arms, cradles her carefully, says he won’t let her fall; she almost laughs. Instead, she gasps, head hitting the cool, silvery wall.

“Ari,” he says, tipping her head back up and looking straight into her eyes as though he’s about to tell her the meaning of the universe. He says nothing, closes his eyes, rests his forehead against hers, breathes tremulously through his release.

He sets her down lightly to make sure that she is steady her on her high heels, watches as she pulls the panties back on. He rights his own wardrobe, buttoning the jacket over the shirt to hide the missing buttons, reties the tie.

“Ariadne,” he says as she’s slipping the gray jacket back on, dusting it off with her palms.

“Don’t,” she says, smiles, and they leave it at that.

He leaves after another kiss, sweeter this time, kinder. He leaves and she steps back up to the mirror, the same one that had begun this whole thing.

She closes her eyes.

Her fingernails scrape the inside of the jacket pocket as she reaches for it, the one thing that will either sever the bonds of the dream and send her falling abruptly back to reality, or remind her that she’d never left.

Near the base of the pawn is a deliberate scar. In dreams the imperfection does not exist; not to the touch, not to they eye. Her thumb runs from the very top of the piece all the way to the bottom.

As she begins to rotate the piece there is nothing but that terrible smooth expanse. It feels like forever.

_Who wants to stay in a dream for fifty years?_

It is cool, smooth, perfect, a piece without an equal. If Christ had played chess he would have played with this piece.

And then she feels it, rough under the pad of her thumb, that imperfection.

Her eyes open.

Her reflection smiles back.

   



End file.
